Ambassadors Theatre

‘Vardy v Rooney’ will play Tuesdays only at Wyndham’s Theatre until January. In April it transfers to the Ambassadors Theatre for a ‘normal’ run. The world can be divided into two groups: those who remember where they were on October 9 2019 and those who were living under a rock. For the benefit of you rock-dwellers, October 9 was the day Coleen Rooney posted an explosive revelation on her social media channels. Unbeknownst to her millions of followers, even her family and friends, Rooney had quietly been conducting an investigation into who from her inner circle had been leaking stories about her and her family to The Sun newspaper. The infamous ‘reveal post’ ended with the now iconic line ‘It’s……….Rebekah Vardy’s account’. Playing on Tuesday at Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End for the next couple of months, ‘Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial’ is a pretty faithful stage retelling of the 2022 libel case that followed, as Vardy took Rooney to court to prove her innocence. Fans of a courtroom drama have a lot to be excited about as Lisa Spirling’s production proudly announces that all dialogue delivered from the witness stand is taken directly from the court transcripts and indeed it does write itself (albeit with some judicious pruning from editor Liv Hennessy). There is no need for additional funny quips as the testimony given by Lucy May Barker’s Vardy is funnier than anything any writer could fathom. Under cross-examination at one point, she begins ‘If I’m being h

This review is from the Garrick Theatre in October 2022. ‘My Son’s A Queer’ transfers to the Ambassadors Theatre in January 2023. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more joyous, life-affirming show in the West End right now than this one. Even its journey – via this year’s Edinburgh Fringe – into the bright lights of central London after debuting at the small Turbine Theatre in Battersea last year feels a little fairy-tale. Personally, as a gay man, there’s also something wonderful about seeing the word ‘Queer’ emblazoned so proudly above the venerable Garrick Theatre. This one-person show revolves around the amateur childhood stage productions of its charismatic and funny writer and performer Rob Madge. He talks to us from a set that functions as a heightened version of the Coventry front room we watch in grainy VHS footage on a screen above the stage. Through video snippets from the late 1990s and early 2000s, we see a very young Madge – a child star of West End mega-musicals ‘Les Misérables’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ – enlist their dad in homemade stagings of Disney films like ‘The Little Mermaid’. These clips – which Madge first released on the social media platforms where the non-binary actor and writer is a hugely popular presence – are, first off, extremely funny. They’ll resonate with anyone who’s dreamed of being a star in their living room. The little Madge is hilariously perfectionist, demanding that their dad endlessly repeat scenes, criticising line deliveries and droppi